


Welcome to the Family

by SouCalSweetM_e_lissa



Series: Take the Long Way Home [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Always Female Sam, Cis Female Sam, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, F/M, Female Sam Winchester, Gender or Sex Swap, Overprotective Dean Winchester, Tyson Brady Being an Asshole, girl!Sam
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-06
Updated: 2018-05-23
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12638229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SouCalSweetM_e_lissa/pseuds/SouCalSweetM_e_lissa
Summary: Sam thought she'd managed to leave her old life behind her, but here it comes knocking. Or actually, breaking in and picking fights with her fiancé.





	1. Devil's Night

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning(s) for this chapter:** pretty gory, like right at the very beginning, yowza. Also Stupid Sexy Flanders!Jess sneaking in some Sam/Jess when I TOLD HER not to. Also swearing. Also Sam fuckin' jinxin' it.

The bed is wet and warm on her back, and in her sharp little gasp she realizes she can smell it too, hot and coppery and thick, all around her.

Half a heartbeat before she looks up, she knows what she will see before she sees it.

She looks up, and even in the dark, she sees him in an instant. His ashen face looking back at her with fear and pleading Sam has never seen before on it. The blood from throat to belly, and the opened ribcage, the insides starting to spill outside.

She sees the fire that blooms from his head like a halo.

Smoke pours all the way down to her lungs, but she doesn't cough. Her eyes, her throat, her chest all burn, but she doesn't cough. She stares helpless into the fire, into Brady's agony-filled eyes, watching the face she loves so well blister red and black and run down his cheeks like candlewax, like tears. Sam is screaming and reaching to grab him, pull him down and save him ( _he was still alive,_ she will think later, _all that blood in the bed but he was alive, how long was he still alive?_ ) even though they both know she came back too late.

Brady's lips move like a puppet's, his eyes dark sockets of animal pain, and despite the ruin of his throat, his melting face, he seems to whisper and it is all Sam can hear over the fire, the quiet, aching betrayal in his voice, _Why, Sam?_

\--

"Sam?" she hears Brady mumble in that same low voice from her nightmare. He shifts next to her, clumsy with sleep, and a hand paws at her side. "Wake up, baby."

"I'm awake," Sam croaks. Her throat is rough and raw as if from smoke and screams, and she is sitting upright like she was in the dream. But the bed is dry. There's nothing on the ceiling. And Brady is beside her, safe. Perfectly safe.

Of course he is. That kind of crap is over now. She's okay. _He's_ okay.

Her hand drops into her lap and she exhales, almost sobs, quiet and scared but so freaking _relieved_.

"Sorry for waking you up."

"Nah, you didn't wake me up," he says groggily. "I was getting up anyway. Gotta take a leak."

He's trying to make her laugh, he always is, but she's nowhere close to laughing. Her heart still racing, she rubs her goose-pimpled arms, remembering how Brady's flesh had melted off. Though it's cool enough in the room to make her shiver, she's sweating. That heat. Like being locked into a crematorium oven. Fucking Christ, even now it felt so vivid. It felt more real than this does.

Brady sits up beside her in the dark, his arms around her. Warm and safe and _alive_ , nothing like the horror on the ceiling she'd seen. "More bad dreams, huh?"

She tries to blink away the tears in her eyes. She didn't want him to know just how bad. "Yeah." More fucking awful dreams, but this one tops the others. Every time she has it, she wakes up in a total panic, full of grief and guilt, convinced she'd just seen Brady die. Sam is no stranger to nightmares - hell, you want a real nightmare, take a look at the first 18 years of her life - but this one scares the crap out of her.

Brady hums sympathetically and nuzzles into the crook of her neck. Sam first flinches at the unexpectedness of it and then sighs. Her arms go around his, clasping him tightly. Fiercely.

"Ow. Must've been a good one," he says. "What was it about?"

No. Tell him and freak him out? Tell him she dreamed him gutted like a fish with his face melting off in a fire? Tell him she dreamed of him dying? Make him scared of her and her messed-up head for coming up with this sick, twisted crap?

No. No, she's never going to scare him. She's never going to see that look in his face in real-life.

She touches the ring on her finger, feels its cool solidity against her skin, and the world rights itself. Because Brady is safe, and she is safe, and all that crap before is behind them now, done and gone, locked away. The dream was just frayed nerves and bad memories cooked together; but this ring is _real _, it's proof and a promise. They're about to begin the best part of their lives together. It's finally, really happening and for the first time, Sam can't wait to see what her future has in store.__

So Sam Winchester decides to say, "I... don't really remember. It's fading now."

"Well, okay. That's good, right? Sounds like you're better off that way." He yawns while trying to hide it against her shoulder, which makes Sam yawn. And also twist up with guilt for poor Brady. Maybe she should start sleeping on the couch. "Anyway, seeing as it's 3 AM, want to try going back to sleep?"

 _Not really._ She sighs, but she has to admit, she does feel pretty tired. These short nights are taking a lot out of her. "Yeah. Didn't you have to take a leak?"

"Jesus, it sounds so crude when you say it," Brady mutters, and Sam finally cracks a smile.

"My eternal curse," she says wryly, which sends him off to the bathroom with a snicker. And that's something, at least.

Still, she doesn't relax until she feels him slip back into bed with her. With his arm draped over her waist, she lies completely still, staring at the ceiling, up into blackness, and listens to his breathing until she finally falls back asleep herself.

(That part of her life is _over_. So when does she get to put it behind her?)

\--

"Sam! Get up! Come on, you were supposed to already be ready by now!"

Sam's eyes shoot open, bloodshot, and for a moment she has no idea where she is. Or who the curly-headed blonde shaking her awake is, though fresh from her last dream, another name is on her lips.

"Jess?" she says instead, bemused. "What is it?" She blinks and realizes that for... whatever reason, her friend is dressed like a nurse. If the hospital cared more about cleavage than sanitation. Maybe this _is_ another dream. She half-expects Dean to show up next as a doctor or something.

Jess grins. " _You_ overslept so _I_ , the handsome prince, have come to awaken you," she quips.

"Charming. Though if you were looking for a kiss, I'm already engaged," Sam quips back, thankfully permanently switched into Auto Snark no matter her current level of awakeness.

"Ah, true, but Prince Charming out there was all ready to let you keep sleeping and let you miss the festivities, forcing my hand in rescuing my dear friend from her bad sleep patterns."

"Okay, okay, time-out on the fairy tale stuff, it's too early and you're a nurse." Self-conscious about being caught in bed, even by her old roommate and especially by her very beautiful old roommate in a sexy outfit, Sam clutches the blanket to her chest and tries to smooth her hair down with her fingers a bit. "Wait, what time is it?"

This is apparently the question Jessica has been waiting for her to ask, because she leans forward and widens her eyes, trilling, "Five o'clock!"

With a curse, Sam jumps out of bed, wrapping her blanket around her as she goes. It isn't like she's naked, she has a nightshirt on, but it shows her legs and she doesn't want Jess catching her looking like she just rolled out of bed (which she did) in nothing but a nightshirt when Jess is all glammed up. Sam flees to the bathroom and closes the door. "I'll be ten minutes!" she promises, appraising herself in the mirror with a grimace.

"Don't forget your costume!" her friends calls out, before she hears the bedroom door reopen and close; Jessica giving her some privacy.

"Not wearing a Halloween costume," she says quietly, already tired again. Which isn't great when she's late and supposed to be hurrying getting dressed. But she doesn't want to disappoint her friends or be a downer. They're doing this for her. So she runs a quick comb through her hair and hops in the shower, more to splash as much water in her tired eyes than anything else.

After a lightning-round of makeup and pulling-on of clothes, she slips out into the living room, where Brady and Jessica are watching TV - Brady sprawled out on the couch and Jessica leaning on an armchair arm. They turn to look at her and Brady gives his approval with a wolf whistle.

Sam flushes, but she's pleased that his eyes are all for her. She doesn't think she's that ugly but she bears her insecurities like old wounds, sore and ready to reopen at any small prod. After all, she's only one quiet, moody, awkward girl with way more baggage and scars and secrets than money, next to the thousands of pretty, fun, well-off girls of Stanford... and sometimes she can't help but wonder why Brady chose her.

But right now, the way he's looking at her, she's beautiful. (She's worth it.)

"You look really good, Sam," Jess says. "Seriously, you look awesome. I love that lipstick on you. But, uh... since it's Halloween, didn't you maybe want to wear a costume instead? I'm sure you guys have something we can add to-"

"No." It come out too harsh, too quick, and the change in their expressions hit Sam like a whip. She forces a quick smile to prove she isn't being a total bitch about it - but is unable to shake the feeling that she's being one anyway. "I mean, I just don't really want to do it. You guys know I don't do Halloween," she says, and refrains from adding that she barely wants to even do this. She doesn't just not do Halloween; she actually kind of hates it.

"All right, doll, whatever you want," Brady slides in with an easygoing, encouraging smile. "It's your night. Right, Jess?"

"Oh yeah, totally! Do whatever you want! I mean, we're not going trick-or-treating or anything," she says, her smile apologetic and warm. Sam still can't really believe her luck in finding these people.

Brady glances at the cable box. "Anyway, you girls better get a move on if you're going to round up the whole gang."

"Wait, you're not coming?" Jessica asks, glancing between him and Sam with a faint frown.

"Someone has to fork over candy to the little twerps running amok," Brady sighs. "Might as well be the guy who swore off the drinking."

Sam is half-relieved, half-disappointed at his words, same as she was when he first decided to stay home. He has worked so _hard_ to claw his way back up from the death spiral he'd been in in sophomore year, and she loves and admires him more than she can say. All the same, she feels guilty for leaving him here when she's out partying.

She hesitates and again she thinks of changing venues to someplace else - maybe a restaurant instead of a bar, no alcohol involved, so Brady can come with. And yeah, maybe the others would be put out, but they'd understand. "Sure you don't want to come? We don't have to drink," she says.

"Come on, Sammy, have you _met_ Luis? I love the guy, but he's more Jell-O shot than human. He'll find a way to get trashed. Better not risk it." Brady waves a dismissive hand at the girls. "Go on, get out of here, go have fun. A _Hellraiser_ marathon's starting soon and I don't want you delicate ladies to get scared."

The delicate ladies snort in unison. _If only you knew,_ Sam thinks with a wry smile. Brady loves gory horror movies to death, and she has a creeping suspicion he's taking his self-imposed exclusion from the group's activities so well because of the marathons running all night.

Ironic he ends up with someone who'd _lived_ horror movies. Sam doesn't like them nearly as much.

"Responsible man," Jess says, giving his shoulders a hearty pat as she leaves. "Have fun with the trick-or-treaters!"

"Oh, sure will!" Brady says with a smirk that makes Sam give him a light slap to the shoulder before she bends to drop a light kiss on his cheek. More gently, he says, "Really, I will. Don't worry about me. Cut loose and have fun, baby. You deserve it."

Sam cups his cheeks and looks adoringly down at him, her heart swelling up with more love than she can handle, and her tone matches his as she says, "You too, Brady. I'm really proud of you." Quickly, in case Jess doubles back, she moves in for a deeper kiss on his lips and Brady pulls her down closer - pulls her onto her tip-toes - as he kisses her back.

Brady makes a pleased sound. "Better go before I lock Jess out and have my way with you," he whispers in her ear, chuckling.

"Oh my God, don't tempt me," she says feverishly. She grabs a jacket as she heads out into the dying California sunlight to meet up with Jessica, grinning like an idiot despite the holiday and of course, Jessica teases her mercilessly for it.

Sam made it _out_ , whole and alive, and she is _safe_. She's got the man of her dreams, more friends than the lonely, crying girl in a million motel rooms could've imagined, and - fingers crossed - she just might have a shot at finishing school right here in the best school in the country, all tuition paid, before her wedding.

Sam isn't a superstitious person, but there's change in the air and being as lighthearted in love as she is, she thinks it's a good change. Growth, healing, whatever you want to call it. Everything is working itself out even more perfectly she could've hoped for, so maybe it's time to stop letting her past haunt her. It's time to just move on.

Maybe tonight will be the night.


	2. Summer's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected visitor drops by Halloween night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guyssssss, I'm so sorry! I wanted to have this out much sooner but I'd been planning to have a crossover with something else as part of Sam's backstory and I didn't know the exact outcome I wanted. I knew I'd be alluding to it in this chapter and that it'd have to set up the next part of the series (bc I was planning a flashback to that part of the backstory and I wanted to know how Sam would look back on that time in her life). Eventually I realized that the events couldn't play out the way they had in that particular thing, because otherwise it would've messed with Sam's perception of a normal life and might've changed things too much! Therefore, I'm still keeping the crossover still kinda quietly canon to her backstory, but all the characters lived happily ever after and nothing bad happened to any of them. :'D (... I MIGHT undercut that still by doing an AU non-canon to this series but exploring one of the ideas I had, because it was so! interesting to me! But it'd probably be a one-shot and again, not canon to this series.)
> 
> Why am I being so vague about what thing I wanted to do a crossover with? So you can try to guess! Your hints are that it is slightly related to the second episode of _Supernatural_ and that Sam alludes to the characters a bit. Anyone who guesses what it was/is before the crossover goes up (if it goes up! I still don't know how interesting it would or wouldn't be) will get to them, a real! genuine! actual! physical! veritable! VIRTUAL COOKiE to their very own real-life home! (Note: real cookie not included.)
> 
> I'll try to have the last chapter of this part up soon as I can, hopefully within the next week or so, but am very easily distracted. :( After this, I'll probably want to do three oneshots and maybe then just skip ahead to start a new multichapter fic to cover "Devil's Trap" and "In My Time of Dying" because there's some stuff there I'm _dying_ to get into! *badum tish man does his thing; I flip a coin into his tip-hat* Thanks, guy. Anyway I would like to introduce Meg first, but I don't know that "Scarecrow" or "Shadow" would be too different from the canon episodes, so I might skip 'em... We'll see, though! Lots of possibilities!

The party goes pretty much the way Sam expects: loud, embarrassing, and way too much booze. Sam declines a drink, not wanting to come home to Brady with alcohol on her breath, so they decide on Shirley Temples for her instead (and go from congratulating Sam on passing her LSAT to talking shit on annoying Shirley Temple DVD collection commercials in the process) while her friends order shots "for" her and cheerfully drink them themselves when she reminds them she doesn't drink anymore. Shockingly, almost all her friends end the night shitfaced.

Grateful the bar had been close enough that none of them had had to drive, Sam herds them back to their dorms and motels, the group - leftover bags in hand from the food they'd gotten at the bar - laughing and shushing each other as they dodge around the last of the tiny trick-or-treaters and other costumed party-goers. They drop each other off after one last parting hug and yet another round of congratulations to Sam. The noise quiets as the group thins, until it's just Sam and Jessica again. Which isn't coincidence; Sam hadn't drank anything at all and Jess was the least buzzed, so they had decided to make sure everyone got home safe.

Their heels clack on the sidewalk, pleasantly loud, solid, crisp notes. Sam likes it. She hadn't been especially keen on the idea of the party, but she'd missed her friends and seeing them all again, talking to them all again, filled something inside her. Having to end the night by saying goodbye again to them all gives her a bittersweet feeling. Having Jess makes her feel a little less lonely.

Sam sighs. She's doing it again, thinking too much. Ruining things. Halloween has never been a good time of year for her.

Jess nudges her. "Hey, what's that all about? Are you tired?" Sam feels her looking over at her face. She'd covered it up with makeup after getting up, but she wouldn't be surprised if Jess remembered the bags under her eyes from when she came in to wake Sam up. Jess is too polite to ask, but she's sharp.

She was Sam's roommate. She knows about the nightmares Sam has.

Sam hesitates. "A little," she admits. "I'm not much of a party-girl, you know."

"I know," Jess says fondly, and links her arm through Sam's, giggling. Sam's melancholy lifts a little. "It was worth it though, right?"

Sam looks directly ahead and gives a noncommittal, "Hm."

Jessica laughs. "C'mon, Sam! I saw you smiling."

"I guess it was. A little bit. ... Thanks for putting it together for me."

"You don't need to thank me. I mean, I did kinda force you into it - "

"True."

"Hey, no, no! You had fun, I know you did. And you know what? I was happy to do it for my best friend."

Slightly overwhelmed at hearing anyone call her their best friend, Sam looks away. "Thanks," she says, almost too soft to hear, and Jess gives her a gentle hip bump in response.

Sam clears her throat and they go back to talking about the guy who keeps flirting with Jess and debating whether she should give him a chance, what she wants in a guy, whether she even wants to be dating right now with the workload from her classes, and how to pull off an alcohol-free party with Brady to help him feel included. At the dorm, they hug and Jess promises to call her over the weekend. Sam waits until she hears the door lock before she heads home.

It would be dark out if it weren't for the Halloween lights out everywhere to light the way for the little kids. Sam enjoys the chance to stretch her legs. She itches for a good jog home, but there's the bag of food to consider and she doesn't want to risk jostling it.

She's home before she knows it, climbing the small square red steps leading up to the door. She's lived here with Brady for a year now and it's not much, but it's theirs and she's damn proud of it. She works hard to make it look as clean and well-maintained and beautiful as any of the billions of houses she's seen, whipping by in car windows with envy in her heart.

The lights are on in the windows, she notes. Brady might've fallen asleep on the couch watching his movies.

She knocks on the door to give him a heads-up. "Brady? I'm home."

Nothing. Her hand drifts to the doorknob, touching the cold metal, when she hears it turn.

The door swings open with a low, ominous creak and Something is staring at her with big alien-black eyes and ruined, wrinkled skin and gnashing teeth streaked in red.

Sam doesn't blink. "Boo. Very scary. You know, you're only the seventh person to pull that tonight."

"Ha. Well, 'tis the season." She can hear the asshole grin in his voice, muffled as it is. "Holy shit, is that food? You brought me food?"

She holds up the bag. "Hmm. Good question. That depends. You weren't doing that to the trick-or-treaters, were you?"

"No, ma'am! I didn't scare a single hair on the little kiddies' sweet little heads. I even gave them most of our candy."

"Yeah, you were supposed to do that. That's kind of the whole point."

Brady chuckles. "Not _my_ Halloween. I deserve a gold star for good behavior."

Smirking, she passes him the bag. "Sorry to disappoint, no gold stars. But you can have pizza."

He finally pulls the ugly mask off, releasing blond hair and flushed cheeks, using his free hands to pull the small box free of the bag. "Pizza's not a bad start! What kind?" He pops it open to inspect. "Aw, Sammy, I knew you loved me!"

Sam snorts as she closes and locks the door behind her. "You're lucky I do, with taste like that. Pineapples. On a _pizza_. Ugh. Who came up with that?"

He throws her a smile. "Oh, I don't know. I happen to think I've got pretty good taste."

"Are you... really comparing me to pineapple pizza?" Sam asks in mock disgust.

"Yes."

"Okay. Wedding's off."

"Oh no," Brady says, untroubled by this unfortunate turn of events in his love life. "Am I still allowed to have the pizza?"

"Yes, you can still have the pizza that ruined our engagement."

"Hey, all right! Things are looking back up already."

Brady walks off to the kitchen with his box and Sam hears him opening the fridge. She takes off her jacket and hangs it inside the closet by the front door, glancing around the living room. The TV's off now. "Were you going to bed?" she asks, raising her voice slightly to be heard.

"Nope! Waiting for you!"

Sam smirks. "How long were you waiting here in that mask?"

"How was the party?" Brady calls back instead and she giggles to herself. Subtlety is not his forte.

She follows him into the kitchen. "Uh, not bad. I mean, it was fun. Got to catch up with the old gang. They're all doing good. Emily and Zack are apparently a thing now."

"Poor Zack," Brady mutters into the fridge.

Yeah, but still. "Be nice."

"I'm _always_ nice, Sam. I'm just saying, my condolences to Zack and his family. Anyway, fun, that's good. You glad Jess made you go?"

Sam fiddles with her ring, twisting it on her finger. "I guess. It was okay, I just wish you could've come. It would've been better with you there too," she says.

A soft smile on his face, Brady reaches for the hand that wears their ring, taking it to his lips and dropping a kiss on the knuckles before he kisses the ring itself. Sam lets out a nervous laugh, embarrassed by the heat rising on her cheeks. It's been months since she got engaged, it's really kind of embarrassing that she's still not used to this.

But she smiles back. She doesn't mind too much. Brady sets butterflies loose in her stomach with just a kiss and that's thrilling. It's nice to have something so nice in her life. Maybe it's a good thing. One day, she'll accept it like an everyday thing and it'll replace the other thing she still can't quite shake (the looking for exits in every room as soon as she walks in, the jumping at sudden noises, the fucking _nightmares_ ). Until then, maybe it's not so bad to feel like this. It's not a bad feeling at all.

"Jess and I were talking," Sam says.

"Oh? My Jess or your Jess?"

She huffs. "Roommate Jess, not high school Jess."

He grins. "Oh, you mean my Jess, then. Go on."

"We were thinking about maybe having another get-together, but with you along. Maybe soccer."

"Hm, I do like to point and laugh when you trip everyone with your long-ass giraffe legs," Brady says thoughtfully. When she glares, he amends it with a cheeky smile. "Sorry - _sexy_ long-ass giraffe legs."

"Want to be my cheerleader?" she offers.

"Hell yeah, baby, I'll be your cheerleader. But you also wanted to pick up new clothes for your job interview, don't forget. And we need groceries."

"We can fit that all in tomorrow, s'long as we get up early."

"Want to go to bed _now_ , then?" Brady asks, eyes glittering. Even without the way his fingers play up her thighs, she'd get his meaning. And she wants to, she's been thinking of other ways she can make up for the missed party and he can celebrate her score in private, but there's one potential problem.

"Uh, I don't want to get _involved_ and then be _interrupted_ by trick-or-treaters, Brady."

"How late do you think kids are allowed out? They're all already home. Anyone who comes knocking now is either too old for candy or a serial killer."

Sam smiles tightly. "I have got to stop letting you watch those movies," she says, and Brady laughs.

\--

_Why, Sam?_

\--

She wakes up to a scream in her throat and a hand clamping over her mouth. "Shh. It's just me," Brady whispers beside her, and his tone wakes her all the way up immediately; she's never heard him talk like that.

He takes his hand away from her mouth and touches her shoulder. "I'm sorry, but I thought you were going to scream."

"What's wrong?" she asks urgently.

"I need you to be brave. Be brave for me?"

A chill radiates through her at his words. Her muscles tense under him. "Brady, what's - "

Somewhere in their apartment, something crashes.

Sam hears footsteps.

 _"Someone's inside,"_ Brady hisses in her ear. "Broke in, just now, a burglar. I need you to go out the window, run as _fast_ as you can, and get the police. Don't stop no matter what you see, just get outside. I'll distract them."

Sam's eyes widen in horror and she quickly turns to grab him, but he's already gone, pushed himself quietly off the bed and pulling up a pair of boxers. "I'm not leaving you," she says firmly. The thought of soft, good-natured Brady charging into a fight with anythi - any _one_ quite frankly terrifies her, but she knows she won't be able to convince him to be the one who runs out instead. "Wait for me." She slips out of bed as well and creeps to where the closet should be. The only light in the room is the digital clock, glowing 3:52 AM at her in blocky acid-green.

(It's always 3-fucking-52 AM when she wakes up from a nightmare. But that's not unusual. Circadian rhythms. Sleep patterns. She would wake up this early when she was still living with Dad and Dean, to speed through her homework, before the morning drills and practices and then school. Sometimes it was the only way she could do it. All this stressing about the LSAT must be tapping into her old unconscious associations with stress and school.)

"You're not coming with me, Sam! You don't know who's out there, you don't know how many are out there! You'll only get yourself killed, or worse! Just go, okay? I'll be fine."

"Trust me, I can handle myself," she says tersely. She pulls the shirt over her head as quick as she can, pulls the pajamas on even quicker. She can't even see which ones she picked, but it doesn't matter. They cover her and they're lightweight, breathable. They'll work in a fight. That's all she needs. She breathes in through her nose. "Look, I know what I'm going to say isn't exactly the way you're used to thinking, but it'd be better if you went out the window and I went to distract them, believe me. I know how to take care of this. But I don't want you to get hurt and if I'm worried about you, I might not be able to concentrate the way I need to."

The door creaks open and Sam spins, falling back into a tensed-wire stance, searching for enemies in the dark. But there's nothing.

Nothing at all.

She thinks she hears something outside in the hall, though.

And she realizes Brady isn't in the room anymore.

The nightmare tries to come back, but she pushes it out of mind, sick to her stomach at the idea of anything happening to him. The idea of Brady getting hurt, getting _killed_ , is more than she can bear.

She isn't going to let it happen. She slips outside the room too, light and silent as a ghost, to go save her fiancé.

The lights are all still off, but Sam's eyes have adjusted a bit more and she knows her way well enough around her own home to navigate. She moves through the dark like a predator out on the hunt, making her way to where she heard the crash and listening intently for more sounds, hoping for footsteps. Whoever is closest is first, and please God, let it be Brady, so she can send him off to safety while she deals with the rest.

Sam's luck isn't nearly that good, so instead she gets the sounds of a struggle break out in the living room. She rushes in and slams on the lights, ready to take advantage of the intruder's unexpected surprise to jump into the fray.

To her shock, the intruder is already on the floor, curling up on his side and breathing raggedly. Brady stands over him, looks over at her, and.. he actually seems okay. The surprise and relief she feels at that nearly bring her to her knees.

Her heart is pounding so hard from anxiety and adrenaline she feels like she was the one who was just in a fight. "Brady?"

"I'm fi- "

"Sammy?" croaks a new voice, cutting right through her before she even knows why. Sam turns to look at the intruder again, and her brother, four years older and rougher since she last saw him, stares up at her from the floor with pain in his eyes. Older and rougher, but _alive_ and goddamn there's emotion coursing through her now that she can't describe at seeing him again. She hasn't seen or heard anything from him and Dad in four years. When she left that night, she left knowing that they might not ever speak to her again and she might never know what would happen to them.

(She had to take that chance, because Dad didn't give her any choice, and she'd had to live with that for four years.)

"Dean," she says hoarsely, because she doesn't know what else to say. What is there to say?

(Too much, it turns out.)

Brady glances down at Dean and then back at her. "What, you know this guy?"

"Yeah she does, asshole, I'm her brother," Dean spits out before she can answer. He clutches his side again and grimaces. "Sam, some help here?"

"Brother? Wait, this guy's your brother?" Brady asks her.

"Yeah. That's Dean," she says. She reins herself back in and crosses the room to Dean to give in and help him up, but seeing him holding his side like that, she's worried about him now. He might be fresh off a hunt, and who knows what kinds of injuries he walked off in that one? Sam bites back a twinge of guilt, and drops down to gently prod at his side.

Dean tries to wave her off. "Get off of me, it's not that bad." She gives him a light poke and he winces.

"Sure it isn't," she says, locking eyes with him. "Man, I can't believe you lost a fight." _To a civilian,_ her lifted eyebrow adds, and Dean instantly gets a grumpy expression on his face. And that's a relief, because if Dean is feeling well enough to get huffy, he probably doesn't need a hospital. _That's what you get for breaking into my apartment at 4 in the morning, you lunatic._ Resisting the urge to smirk, she grabs his hand and hauls him to his feet, grunting with effort; it's not an easy task for a big dude like him. "You must be getting old, big brother."

"Maybe I am," he says, and looks back up at her. "Maybe I need your help."

Instantly wary, she drops his hand and steps back towards Brady. "With _what_?"

Dean nods meaningfully at Brady. _Get him out of here._

Instead Sam steps back again and takes Brady's hand in hers, deliberately ignoring Dean and searching her fiancé's face. He's been unusually quiet and he gives her a quizzical look, but she still doesn't see any blood or bruises or... anything really. Nothing from his and Dean's fight. God, he must've really gotten the drop on Dean. Maybe that should make her proud of him or something, knowing he can take care of himself so well... but it kinda... doesn't. Dean could always kick her ass. If even her yuppie boyfriend can get one over on him now -

Suddenly dread sinks into her, heavy as a blanket on her bones. Because where's Dean's backup? Dean wouldn't come here without Dad's say-so, and she's pretty sure Dad isn't interested in having anything to do with her anymore. And now that she thinks about it, breaking into her place sounds like Dean, not Dad.

"Say what you came here to say," Sam says, grabbing Brady's hand. She feels a little cowardly doing this, using him as a shield, but it's the only way to stop Dean from talking about what she doesn't ever want to talk about again. The crazy shit. He won't do it in front of a civilian. "But Brady's not going anywhere."

Dean looks at her and Brady's entwined hands, and too late, she remembers the engagement rings. She hates the sudden hurt look of realization on his face. She _hates_ it. He doesn't get to _be_ hurt, not after how he and Dad hurt her. They were the ones who cut _her_ out, what did he think...?

"Does he know, Sammy?" Dean asks. Very quietly, but it carries and God, it sounds so loud. She swallows down the urge to tell him to shut up. To tell him to get the hell out of her apartment before he messes everything up.

"Dean," she says again, ice-cold and perfectly clear.

"Huh. Doesn't sound like it," Dean muses. He pins a falsely bright, friendly grin on Brady next. "Hey big man, getting married to my little sister. Welcome to the family. Brady, right?"

Brady smiles back, all straight white teeth, and stretches out his free hand as Sam looks back and forth between them in alarm. She squeezes his hand tighter to tell him to put the other one back down, but he doesn't seem to get the memo. "Yes, sir! Can't wait for the big day. Did Sammy tell you?"

Dean walks over and grabs Brady's hand in what Sam bets is the hardest grip he can give - which, having once been dangling off the top of a demented Ferris wheel, about to fall to her death, and only Dean holding onto her to keep her from splattering, she knows can be bone-crushingly hard.

Now it's Brady's turn to wince.

She grits her teeth. _"Dean!"_

Smiling dangerously, her jackass brother jerks Brady over to him and Brady, looking startled, stumbles. "You know, I gotta tell you. My sister is totally out of your league," Dean says, and lets him go. Brady retrieves his hand and flexes his fingers.

Sam sees red and gives her brother a hard shove in the chest to knock him away from Brady and hopefully back to what little sense he has. "That's _enough_ , Dean! You can't break into my house in the middle of the night after four years of radio silence and fight with my fiancé! You wanna talk, so talk!"

"Yeah, why don't we _talk_ , Sam?" he snaps back. "Why don't we all have a nice talk? You, me, and your shiny new _fiancé_ , huh? Lots to talk about. We're all family here! Nothing to hide!"

 _Don't you dare,_ Sam glares at him.

Dean looks coolly back, but she doesn't know what he's thinking. They've been apart too long.

"So, Brady," Dean says, ignoring Sam's low "Dean..." "How much has _Sammy_ told you about us?"

"Dean!"

Brady shrugs. "Not much. She never mentions you guys, to tell the truth. I didn't even know you existed until tonight."

Both Winchester siblings recoil. "Brady!" Sam exclaims, now looking at him, hurt he'd betray her like that and take part in this even when she's made it clear she wants this to stop.

Brady looks at her apologetically. "Sorry, baby, but it's true. And if I'm marrying you, don't I deserve to know more about the family I'm marrying into? About you?"

Sam lowers her voice; it's so damn uncomfortable to be doing this in front of her estranged brother. "But you _do_ know me."

"Not all of you," Dean interrupts. "I bet there are things about her you've noticed. Maybe you never mentioned them because you figured she'd tell you eventually, or maybe you asked and she said she'd tell you later. Guess what? She never will."

Sam pulls away from Brady. "Dean, shut up. Point taken, okay? We can talk about this outside, you don't need to - "

"No, let him talk," Brady says. He looks at her in a way he's never looked at her before and it nearly shatters her.

"Okay, I'm sorry. I really am. I'll tell you, Brady, just not tonight," she pleads. She'd say anything to get that look off his face.

Brady narrows his eyes. "No. You always say that, Sam, and it's always 'later.' I don't know what the hell it is with you, but everything's a damn secret! Everything before you came here is off-limits. And now your brother you've never mentioned before is breaking into our apartment and you want to drag him off to talk about something else you don't want me to know? Hell no. I love you, Sam, I do. But I've waited long enough. I want to hear it now. All of it."

Sam's mouth trembles as though she's about to open it and say something. She's not. She has no words. Brady has always been the most patient, understanding man she's ever met; she had no idea he thought that way. Or that there was any limit to his patience. She just... took it for granted that there could always be a "later."

She never intended to tell him. Or that he'd ever find out. He loved her, he said so, but there was always a part of her sure in the pit of her stomach that he didn't. Not enough. Not really. That he would think she was a crazy bitch and leave her if he knew.

She feels like she's back in the motel room with Dad and Dean again. Nobody on her side, always wrong.

Suddenly she wishes he would put his arms around her again, the way he always does when knows to do when she's cold or unhappy. But he doesn't this time.

She crosses her arms in front of her chest to hide her wounds, and looks at the floor to avoid Dean's attempt to catch her eyes. Slowly, Dean starts to talk again.

Tears well up in her eyes. He's going to leave her.

She's going to be alone again.

\--

Brady holds up three fingers and counts them off. "So. Dead mom, monsters, missing dad." He nudges Sam. "See? That wasn't so hard to explain, was it?"

"It's not a Powerpoint presentation, Brady," she mutters. She didn't talk much as Dean did his whole show-and-tell on their lives. She's still reeling from all this: Brady's anger. Dean showing up again out of nowhere and telling Brady everything.

The voicemail with her dad's voice. And the EVP. _"I can never go home."_

Sam wishes she couldn't empathize so much with a ghost. Not a great sign about the direction her life has taken in the past 24 hours.

"I know," Brady says. And now he does sling his arm around her shoulders, hugging her close to him and rubbing her shoulder. "And it's a lot. I'm sorry you had to go through all that... and I'm sorry I lost my temper. It's just been a weird night."

Sam nods stiffly, resisting the urge to melt and rest her head on his shoulder when she's still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"So..."

"What?" she asks, dreading the answer. _Here it comes._

"You're going with Dean, huh?"

"Looks like it." She was upset with her brother, no doubt, but. She just couldn't shoot him down. He and Dad had left her alone, and she still felt the pain from that like a broken rib that'd never heal. She couldn't do the same thing to him, no matter what he'd done to her.

Brady traced the tips of his fingers along the exposed skin of her bicep. "Okay," he says mildly. "Then I'm coming too."

Sam's head snaps up to look at him. He raises his eyebrows in challenge. "No. You're not," she says, and that is fucking _that_.

Brady smiles cheerfully, like this is all some game. Like he still doesn't get it. "But I want to meet my father-in-law. After all, I've heard so much about him."

Her eyes widen. "No, no. God, no. _Definitely_ not." Dean is bad enough; Dad would eat Brady alive.

"What, I don't get a say? My fiancée goes to risk her life, and I'm not allowed to have her back? Do you just not want me to meet your dad? Are you ashamed of me or something, Sam?"

"No! God, no. Brady, it's not _you_ who- Listen, Dean will be there. He'll look after me, he always has. We know how to handle these things, and you don't, so _no_ , you're not coming." She releases a shaking sigh. "I kept this secret because I thought... I thought you'd be safer that way. And I'm sorry if I ever hurt you or made you doubt me or betrayed your trust in me because of that, I'm _sorry_." She blinks as the tears start coming down. She hopes Dean doesn't come back in right now or he'll definitely start shit again, overprotective jerk. "I-I can't lose you. You know? You're everything to me."

"I know, I know," Brady says softly, and kisses the tears on her cheeks. "Believe me, Sam, I understand. But you have to look at it from my side too, huh? What if something happens to you and I have to live the rest of my life thinking that maybe I could've done something about it if I'd just followed my instincts? Honestly, Sam? I don't trust your brother to look after you. He doesn't seem like much. I handled him pretty easy, remember? You didn't think I could, but I did. You think I can't do this, but I can."

Sam puts her fingertips on his face and looks up at him, begging him to understand, willing understanding into him. "But you can't," she says, her voice wavering. "Brady, baby, you'd only get yourself killed. I've seen so many horrible things, Brady, I can't forget them. I see them when I close my eyes. I still have dreams about them, and I think I always will. You don't know what it's like. You can't possibly imagine. You'd die, in some godawful way. Or... or you'd live. And you'd never forget. Not ever... And sometimes, I don't know which one is worse."

"Then allow me to make it easier for you." Brady catches her fingers on his face, light as can be, and holds them there against his skin. She can feel her pulse through her fingers, trapped in his. "Feel that? You and me, alive. Together. I've seen some bad shit too, Sammy, believe it or not. We all have our bad dreams. We all have our secrets. But none of it matters more than you. You're special, Sammy, and we can do amazing things together. Do you trust me?"

"I do," she says, and now she closes her streaming eyes and presses them against his chest. His heart beats against her eyelids, calm and measured, and nothing is more precious to her than it. "I do," she whispers. "I'm so sorry if I ever made you doubt that, Brady, I trust you. I love you."

"I love you too, Sammy. Never forget that." He kisses her fingers, each one, and she feels his smile through his kisses. "Trust me, it's all gonna be okay."


	3. Old Times

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning(s) for the chapter:** cusses, dick swingin dudes, extreme authorial restraint for being able to put "key" and "lock" in the same sentence without memeing "The French Mistake" (please clap), aaaand child death/murder and implied suicide (not my bad this time)
> 
> So it turns out that the third and last chapter I planned on to end the first installment of this on got a little longer than I was expecting, which is hopefully good news since I kept you waiting for so long? I had decided on cutting out scenes I originally planned, but Sam and Dean demanded so much DRAMA that I ended up having to add in a new scene anyway and then since I kept y'all waiting for so long (and to celebrate the season finale - yay, my boy Jack's still alive and good!), I decided to just readd the cut scenes, chop the chapter into two parts, and put the first half up ASAP.
> 
> Quick note that there is an instance of intentional OOCness with a plotty reason for it. The answer is already in the chapter if you pick up on it (but if not, don't worry, it'll get explored more in parts set during "Home" and other later parts).
> 
> Also, heads-up that I may change the _Take the Long Way Home_ name for this AU at some point? I don't really love the title and just spitballed it real quick when I realized I had to come up with one. Once I decide on one, I'll wait until I've uploaded a new chapter/work still under the current title, and put in the notes what the new name will be, to give y'all a heads-up so it's not too confusing when the title changes on the following chapter. I'm toying with at least one idea right now but we'll see! Just keep in mind I might be changing the title two chapters/works from now.
> 
>  **AO3 Notes:** Now crossposted to my FFN account eswigag, with same-day uploading to both accounts in the future! Unlike this version, the FFN version will be one long multichaptered fic and not a series with multiple installments; what that means is that any fic I deem noncanon to girl!Sam's adventures here will be marked noncanon but still posted under the _Take the Long Way Home_ umbrella, and on FFN it will be posted separately from the multichaptered central fic.
> 
> If it's your thing, I also have some (almost entiiiiirely) SPN femslash one-shots there from the Femslash February of 2017 that I will never, never post here because uploading it there from my Tumblr was enough of a pain already and I have sweet little baby-fingers that tire easily from editing. :c

Dean slams the door shut with a bang that makes her spin and glare because _it's the middle of the freaking night, Dean._ Not to her surprise, he's glaring back. "Are you kidding me, Sam?"

Like she didn't try to talk him out of it. "What do you want me to do, tie him up and leave him here while I'm gone?" she shoots back.

"Yeah! Works for me!"

"I'm not tying him up!" Sam says, exasperated. "I can't believe we're even talking about this. This is your fault anyway. What the hell were you thinking, baiting him like that?"

Dean points at himself, eyebrows shooting up. " _My_ fault? Seriously? He decided to come along, I didn't tell him to. And by the way, I'm not the one who's been lying to this guy I'm planning to get hitched to. Didn't you always hate it when Dad lied to you?"

"Shut up about Dad," she growls. "This isn't the same thing."

"Sure it isn't," he mutters loudly enough that she knows she was supposed to hear it. Then he sighs, scrubbing his hand through his hair. "Okay, whatever. For what it's worth, I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think... I don't know, man. I guess I didn't think he'd treat you like that."

Sam bristles. "He didn't treat me 'like that', whatever _that_ means. He was upset because you dropped a freaking bomb on him, because you couldn't keep your mouth shut - "

Dean stares at her, disbelief and anger mixed on his face. " _He_ was upset? You were _crying_ , Sam! And he didn't give a shit!"

She can't believe he's bringing that up. She didn't expect him to just - say it like that. Dean would hate it when she cried, fumbling with it like a - well, like a boy. He'd high-tail it out of the room, pretend it never happened, and tried to fix it in his own Dean-ish way by beating up whatever he figured made it happen (as if she wouldn't notice how every bully at every school would mysteriously lose their teeth along with the desire to have anything to do with her) and becoming inexplicably nicer for about half a day (which was always fine with Sam - she was as eager to leave it behind as he was).

Screw it. She needs to suck it up and get this out of the way anyway. "It's not a big deal, and it's not his fault, so stop treating him like he's the bad guy. He apologized and I accepted it. My relationship is my business, not yours." _And it's your fault he got upset anyway._ Dean's eyebrows go up at that, and sensing some continued attack on Brady's moral character on the horizon, she beats him to it. "Stop. I don't want him to come either, you know. But he's not gonna listen to either of us. Just... drop it and promise me you'll help me keep him safe, okay?"

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to a civilian even if he's an asshole," Dean grumbles. He circles around to lean on the same side of the car as Sam is, but against the hood, not near her at the trunk. She still couldn't touch him now if she reached out and tried; you could fit a whole other person in the space between them.

The lights are on in the bedroom; Brady's still packing.

Dean slides Sam a sidelong look. "We could drive off right now, you know."

She's thought of that. Not that she's gonna tell him that. "He has a car too, Dean," she points out. "If we leave him here, he'll show up anyway. And if he's going into this, I want him with us so we can look after him and teach him how to handle himself."

"Oh, so he's clingy too. Nice. Landed yourself a real winner there, Sammy."

"He wants to make sure I'm okay," Sam could've said, but the thing is, she already has and Dean has already laughed at it as if the idea of Brady being at all capable of protecting her is absurd.

(To be fair, he's right. Not that she'll ever admit it around him.)

There's no point to arguing. Dean is determined to nitpick everything she says about Brady and turn it all into negatives. And she gets it: Dean has never liked the idea of any boy with her, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out Dean's projecting his anger at Sam out on the stranger. Poor Brady never stood a chance.

Doesn't mean it's not aggravating.

Sam sighs to let Dean know how unbelievably obnoxious he is, but doesn't give him anything else to work with. Her brother drums his fingers on the side of the car and peers at the parking lot. "Which one's his?"

"Uh, Dean, what part of 'Not your business' do you not get?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'm not asking about him, I'm asking about his car. C'mon, just point to it."

"No! It doesn't matter which one it is, you're just gonna badmouth it!"

Dean stays silent another moment, then decides, "All these cars suck anyway. Your boyfriend's got lame taste in wheels, Sammy."

Good thing he doesn't know about Brady's taste in pizza. Sam crosses her arms and ignores Dean's jabs. It occurs to her that she could leave Dean waiting out here and go inside to check on Brady - it'd get her away from Dean's snide comments and macho bullshit - but, snide comments and macho bullshit aside... she hasn't seen or talked to Dean for years, and she really has missed him like a hole in the world. He's a jerk, but so's Brady sometimes and she still loves him. Dean's her brother and until the night she left, he was the biggest part of her life, brother and teacher and best friend and - everything, as much a part of her as her arms and legs.

And after this (after Dad), who knows when she'll get to see him again.

"You're still wearing that necklace, huh?"

Dean touches it as if only now remembering it was there, holding the golden god's head between his thumb and forefinger, and for a moment, she wonders if he'd forgotten she was the one who gave it to him. "Uh, first off, it's an amulet, not a necklace. And yeah, well, why wouldn't I? You said it was supposed to have powers, right?"

"That's what Pastor Jim told Bobby."

"For protection, right?"

"I guess. He didn't say, but that's what most charms are supposed to do. You think it works?"

"If Bobby thought so, it probably does."

That's true. She does like the idea of the amulet she gave Dean helping keep him safe all this time, as though she's been having his back even when they're apart - not that he needs it. She knows them splitting up isn't her fault, and he and Dad were always stronger than her, able to live this life when she couldn't. That doesn't mean she doesn't worry. She's about to ask about Bobby and Pastor Jim and the others when out of nowhere, Dean says, "You look different."

Different how? Good different? Her hair's longer. She's definitely gotten more sun after swapping in the hunting gear of seven layers of jeans and jackets for shorts and tank tops, and has she gotten taller, too? She doesn't think so, but Jessica swears it's true. "Well, it _has_ been four years," Sam says, maybe sounding a touch testier in her self-consciousness than she means to.

"Yeah. It has. So, uh. Not to butt in on your business, but..."

"But you will anyway." She shrugs. "Fine. As long as you're not a dick."

Dean laughs, weirdly, un-Dean-ishly awkward. "No promises, you know me. So. You're engaged, huh?"

She's been waiting for this. "Mm-hmm."

"For real?"

"Yeah."

"Cool. Congratulations." She looks at him in surprise, but he's not looking at her. "So, uh, how'd you two meet?"

"Mutual friend," she says and smiles slightly to herself, watching Brady's shadow walk past the window. "He barely even knew me but he invited me to spend Thanksgiving break with his family so I wouldn't be alone."

"Okay, hold on, that's weird," Dean says. "He didn't even know you but he had some weird girl come spend a few days with his family? And you and them agreed to that?"

"Yes, they did, Dean, it was a nice thing for him to do. All of them were really nice. I appreciated it," she says, stung.

"'Nice.' Jeez. You really fell for that?" Dean shakes his head, apparently unable to restrain himself after all and really, she should've known better. "Your boyfriend's a serious douchebag. You really haven't noticed?"

"Fiancé," Sam reminds him. "And you think every guy who likes me is a douchebag."

Dean sneers. "That's 'cause all guys _are_ douchebags, Sammy. Believe me, I got the inside scoop. So trust me when I say that your boyfriend is a grade-A asshole."

All right. This isn't working. Sam sighs and turns to face Dean head on, making a conscious effort to uncross her arms because she has nothing to feel defensive about and she's got to show both of them that. "Okay. I get you're mad, but seriously, would you back off already? Newsflash, Dean - I'm not some stupid little kid, and I know what I'm doing. You just met him, you don't know what he's really like - "

"He beat the crap out of me, in case you didn't notice! I could barely get up because of your stupid boyfriend!"

"He's my fiancé, Dean! And he only did that that because you _broke into our apartment_! It's not like he knew who you were, he thought you were a burglar!"

"Yeah, it's definitely not like he knew who I was, because apparently he didn't even know you had a brother!" Dean says heatedly, and - dammit, there's the stab of guilt again. He probably wouldn't believe her if she told him why, because he's convinced she's just a whiny, hateful bitch. But it's not what he thinks. She didn't do it because she hated them or wanted to forget them, it was the opposite. Even thinking about them hurt too much, and she had to push the questions away when it came up because she couldn't stand it - thinking of them, knowing they were somewhere else, how messed up it was between all them, and how they might not - 

"It never came up, all right?" she mutters, and it's such a lie, it's so not true, and it's not at all enough. It doesn't seem like it's enough for Dean either, who huffs and looks like he wants to say something. To her relief, he decides against it, squinting at the window instead.

"Where'd he even learn to fight, anyway? Your boyfriend a black-belt or something?"

"Fiancé," she corrects, for what already feels like the tenth time. "And no, no way. He's a total wimp. He can't even arm-wrestle."

Dean fidgets and Sam can't help but smirk just a little. Making fun of her big brother was (is?) her right as a little shit of a sister and he completely deserves it for being such a prick. It's alarmingly easy to slip back into it, like it's normal. "Well, you know, it was... dark. And you guys snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting to get jumped by two people. It wasn't exactly a fair fight, okay?"

"Yeah, that's it," she says, now grinning ear to ear. _Loser._

"Shut up." Dean absently rubs his shoulder, and makes a face.

Sam decides to take pity on him. Not too much pity because he's a raging dickhead, but enough to maybe start smoothing things over to make this not a terrible weekend for everyone involved. "Hey, you want some ice for that?"

"It's _nothing_ ," he insists, so Sam pegs him at about a 3 on the pain scale; hurt enough to lie, but pissy enough that it's not serious.

She pats his shoulder overly delicately to annoy him. Judging by the look he shoots her, it works like a charm. "Right. I'll go get you some ice."

He huffs. "Fine. But bring a beer too, huh?"

"Uh, sorry, Dean, but we don't have beer."

He opens his eyes to give her a disgusted look. "What the hell kind of college did you run off to, man?"

\--

"Wait, you and Brady are going _where_?"

"Away." The last thing she needs is everyone else deciding to follow her to Jericho.

"For...?"

"S'not important. Just some family thing," Sam says distantly. Dean, up in the driver's seat, shakes his head but doesn't say anything.

"But what about the thing with Brady?" Jess's voice asks, tinny in her ear. Sam hears her disappointment, and tries not to, because then it'll add too much to her disappointment. "I thought we were going to do something to celebrate today, all of us."

Yeah, well, that was before Dean turned up and shot that idea to hell. It feels like months since they were talking about this - but it was just last night. Just hours. It's terrifying, how easy it is for her life to change in just one night. For her to get dragged back into this, after how hard she worked to forget and build a new, better life for herself.

And now Brady's been dragged into it, too. God, why the hell did she even agree to let him come with? What the hell was she thinking? He could di-

Brady startles her out of it by smoothing a loose curl behind her ear, pinning it in place with a kiss that makes her giggle. She feels the warm glow and wants to hold her hand over it, keep it there forever so she doesn't lose the feeling.

She can't even remember what she was worrying about. Because that's the way it is with Brady; something about him, maybe his easy confidence, maybe his rock-solid trust in her, makes everything else seem so small and unimportant. She turns to smile at him as Dean groans as loud as he possibly can.

"Okay, okay, that's enough! Do you have to do that to my _sister_ in my _car_?" he barks.

Brady laughs good-naturedly. "Sorry, man! I can't help it. I mean... she may be your sister, but she's _my_ fiancée."

Dean glares at Brady in the rear view mirror. "Well, you better _learn_ to help it or I'm dumping your ass on the side of the road and driving off without you. We don't need you, pal."

Scandalized, Sam slaps her hand over the phone's mouthpiece and leans forward to hiss, "Would you knock it off, Dean? It was just a kiss and we're _engaged_. You're acting like a child!"

"He's a liability, Sam!" Dean bursts out, and she scoffs. "We should be concentrating on Dad, not watching out for this moron!"

"A liability, huh?" Brady muses. "Hmm. That's funny, didn't feel like _I_ was the liability when I was kicking your ass. How are your bruises coming along, Dean? If you think they'll get in the way, maybe you should sit this one out."

 _Oh Jesus, don't you start._ Sam clears her throat. "Uh, Brady."

"Yes, honey?"

This isn't awkward at all. "You maybe want to tone it down?"

"If that'd make you happy, Sam."

She nods emphatically. "It would, thank you. It would actually make me very happy if the dick-measuring contest ended right now and everyone was civil for the rest of the trip."

"Of course," Brady says. "I live to please."

"I appreciate that, Brady," Sam says, now staring pointedly at Dean, who glowers at Brady.

"Kiss-ass Lou Groza motherfucker," Dean growls, making Sam cringe because holy shit, this is such a bad idea. This is _such_ a bad idea. What the hell made her think this would ever work?

But Brady just laughs, and there's that at least, thank God for his sense of humor. Sam sighs and puts the phone back to her ear. "Sorry about that, Jess."

"No problem!" Jess chirps instantly. "I heard voices, is everything okay? Who were guys talking to?"

"Nobody," Sam says, trying to dodge going down another rabbit hole about the estranged brother she doesn't talk about. "Don't worry about us, everything's fine. Anyway, Jess, I gotta go. Just... tell the others we might do something Monday instead, okay? Or maybe not then, but..."

"Can't we just do it tomorrow?"

If only. Sam would give a lot of things right now just to be home with Brady tomorrow, all this done and ready to return to real life. "Don't count on it," she says with regret. "I don't think we'll be back by then."

"Wait, are you going to be gone the whole weekend? But Sam, the interview! That's _Monday_!" Jess exclaims, as if Sam's totally lost her mind and somehow hasn't realized it yet. She's miles and miles behind them, but Sam can still picture her easily: her free hand combing curls of blonde away from her right ear almost like a ponytail, phone pressed to her ear to make sure she's hearing Sam right, eyes wide in concern. Jess has always been as driven and success-focused as Sam; that's part of why they're such good friends.

"I'll be back in time. Believe me." Sam meets Dean's eyes in the rear view mirror. He rolls them.

Jerk.

Still sounding not at all reassured, Jessica gets off the phone and Sam settles into the backseat like an old memory. She imagines dust flying off, but of course Dad and Dean wouldn't allow any dust to make the car look its age, regardless of whether Sam was still in the back. They can clean and scrub the upholstery all they want, but Sam knows there's blood soaked into this leather.

When she was younger, she'd join them, running supplies and wringing out rags before bringing them back, squealing when they flicked water at her. But of course that was before she turned into the problem child. Started shutting herself up in the motel or find anyplace else to go while they worked, because she got so sick of it all, sick of motels and driving and Dad, sick of the way they fought anytime they were around each other and the tension that hung in the air when they didn't.

Brady slips an arm over her shoulders. "So? What'd Jess say?"

"Oh, uh." Sam glances down to Jessica's name on the screen, JESS M. "Nothing, really. Maybe we can do it after the thing on Monday, but... who knows." She was about to say "who knows how _that'll_ go," imagining how miserable a party it'd be if the interviewer didn't like her or wasn't impressed, but is too intensely aware of Dean being within earshot to voice any doubt about her new life. She's seen Dean interview witnesses; if he smells blood in the water, he goes for it.

"Okay, I'll bite: what're you guys talking about now?" the man himself asks.

Like that. "It's nothing," Sam says.

"Huh. Sure doesn't sound like nothing."

"It isn't to _us_ , but you wouldn't be interested," she clarifies. She's pretty sure celebrating the school scores that had landed her enough scholarships to make leaving for school a reality is the last thing Dean would be interested in.

Dean shuffles in his seat. "Well, who knows? It's been a long time. Maybe now, I _would_ be interested."

Sam blinks. She might be wrong, and she... probably is wrong considering who she's talking to, but... that sounded like maybe Dean... would try to see her after this, right? Which... doesn't sound like Dean at all. Not the Dean who took Dad's side and watched her walk out without saying anything, at least. Not the Dean who didn't talk to her for four years, or bother to check on her at all. Not if they find Dad, because Dad sure as hell still won't want anything to do with her. Would Dean really go against Dean like that?

"It's. Uhh." She flushes, realizing now how stupid it'll sound to him, how pointless. A party over her test score? God, he won't shut up about it this whole trip. "Some of our friends getting together. Wanting us to come. That's all."

"Sounds thrilling."

"Really?"

"Hell no. Hanging out with a bunch of geek-ass college nerds?" Dean grins at her. "Ha! Not exactly my idea of a party."

Sam frowns at his description of her friends. "Yeah, that's what I thought." She should've known.

Dean drives for so long that Sam assumes the subject's been dropped and has her eyes closed to rest, when he says, "I might swing around. Maybe. Depending on where this thing with Dad goes. Are you gonna have any chicks there? Is the girl you were talking to hot?"

Sam imagines Jess - or any of her female friends, really - getting cornered by her horndog brother. It's enough to make her shudder. "That is _definitely_ not happening," she says with as much firmness as she possibly put into her voice.

"I don't know, maybe it'd be fun if he came along," Brady chips in.

"Shut up."

"Dean, stop it. He's trying to be nice." She frowns again and rubs her temples. "Ugh, you two're giving me a headache. Listen, I have to take a rest. Can you both just... _please_ try to get along for a little? Or don't talk to each other at all?"

"I'm sorry, of course, baby," Brady says, making Dean make loud retching sounds from the front seat. Brady leans over to reach into the bag at his feet and brings out a small white bottle. "Here."

Sam thanks him and washes an aspirin down with a swallow from the water they've been sharing. He unbuckles her seatbelt and guides her shoulders as she rearranges herself along the backseat, bending and shuffling and sprawling out and all the while fighting an overwhelming wave of nostalgia at how many times she would slept this same way in this same spot, the nights she slept on the rolling road, streetlights zipping by as she listened to old rock songs and daydreamed about what she could've had. Now she closes her eyes, and tries not to think.

"Sweet dreams, Sammy," Brady's voice says quietly above her, and she feels his hand on her cheek, light but there and so, so warm. "Dream something beautiful for me, princess."

 _Love you,_ she thinks sleepily. "See you," she murmurs, and before long, she slips away to the familiar rocking of the car over the long road, her cradle since she was small.

\--

By the time they arrive in Jericho, there's already been another disappearance, a local named Troy Squire. They're heading over Sylvania Bridge when they hit yellow tape and see grim-faced cops searching his open car. The police can't figure whether Troy walked out, or was dragged out, or even jumped the bridge, like he never left the car but vanished all the same. Wherever he'd gone, he'd left the car on. When the police showed up, the keys were still in the ignition and even the radio was still on.

"What station?" Dean asks with interest, and beside him, Sam refrains from rolling her eyes. He really hasn't changed at all.

"No idea," the officer they're talking to says. "Just a bunch of static." Then he pauses, as if weighing whether he should say more.

 _Come on,_ Sam thinks. Now she's interested in his answer too. _Tell us._

The officer blinks and suddenly he's afraid, or close to it. "We did hear... or thought we heard... screams."

"Screams?" Sam asks sharply. "Could you make out any voices or words? Did you recognize anything?"

"No, it was just... noise. It might not even have been screaming. Music today, I can never tell."

But Sam, remembering the EVP Dean played for her at the apartment, keeps on it. "Is the radio still on?"

The officer blinks again. "No, we... we turned it off. It was a distraction."

"Good thinking," Dean says acidly, voicing his sister's frustration.

Neither say it, but Sam and Dean are expecting - more hoping - to find Dad snooping around the way he would in a hunt, but there's no sign of him. Dad should be on this. He should be here. Hell, this shouldn't have even happened, Dad should've stopped this already.

 _He's fine,_ Sam tells herself. _He is, he's fine._ He's always fine.

So then where the hell is he?

The same can be asked of Troy Squire. According to the police Sam and Dean question, his girlfriend reported that she talked to him last night before the call dropped and said she didn't notice him acting out of the ordinary. He hasn't been seen or heard from since - and if the pattern holds, he never will. The victims of Centennial Highway seemingly drop off the face of the Earth. (Like Dad, Sam manages to not think.)

The police don't have much more to offer them, but when Dean gives them a description of Dad's truck, they confirm that no abandoned vehicle turned up like that recently. Dean seems relieved by that, at least. Still, he wouldn't have left without solving the case and the case obviously isn't solved, so he must still be working on it. Why's it taking him so long, and why won't he answer Dean's calls, when he was the one who drilled into them how important it was that they check in during a hunt?

They hope they'll catch Dad at the library doing research, but no dice. The woman at the front doesn't recognize a picture of him, either, but hearing a revised version of the truth, she is concerned and helpful enough to give them a list of places to stay in the area he might've gone. Sam suggests staying at the library a bit longer to try to catch up on whatever research Dad did on the case since coming here, hoping that retracing his steps might help them track him down.

Dean shakes his head. "We'll ask him about the case when we find him."

Sam frowns but doesn't argue. She suspects that they both know there's another reason Sam wanted to stay here, and she hates what a coward it makes her. This is getting way too real, way too fast. Dean was the one she got along with, the one she was closer to, the one who tried to play peacekeeper between her and Dad. If Dean's this upset with her, Dad will have a meltdown bigger than Chernobyl at the sight of her.

 _Tough shit,_ she tells herself. _I'll help him find Dad, but I remember what he said and I'm not forgetting it._ The old anger claws its way back up, and Sam swallows it like poison. She needs that anger. She needs it to hold strong for this, stand her ground for her and for Brady and the life they're building for themselves. _Dad's not gonna want to see me. And I don't really want to see him. So I'll do this, but then I'm done, for good. Dad cut me out, and I made my own family. I'm not giving that up and he's not taking that away from me, and I won't let them make me look like the bad guy because of it._

She grabs Brady's hand and they follow Dean back to the car. Brady rubs his thumb soothingly along her palm, and the familiarity, it does help. She's not gonna be on her own this time up against Dad and Dean. Brady's her back up.

"Your dad's a tough guy to find, huh?" he asks conversationally.

"I guess."

"Do you think he's all right?"

"He's always okay. He probably just drank too much and lost his phone."

Brady chuckles. "He sounds like a real piece of work. You really think he's just drunk?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. Man, I hope he's drunk when we find him. Maybe then he won't recognize me."

"Oh, honey." Brady brings her hand to his lips and kisses the back of it without letting go, like the chivalrous gentleman he so isn't. "Don't freak out. I'll be there."

"I know you will. Just..." She pulls a grimace. "... get ready for screaming and fighting... a lot of it."

"Great, looking forward to it," he says, completely straight-faced, forcing a half-laugh out of her. Maybe he'll handle her dad okay. He's put up with her brother already and come with her to hunt a ghost, which is a lot more than what she would've thought anyone would be willing to do for her.

They reach the car and pile into the back, Dean taking off the second the doors close. Their bad luck hold for the first three motels they hit up on the librarian's list, with still no one recognizing Dad's picture. On the fourth one, the clerk frowns and asks if he's in trouble. Sam and Dean exchange glances.

"No, not at all. See, that's our dad - us two." Dean gestures at himself and Sam. "We haven't heard from him for awhile and we're trying to find him."

"Sorry, but I haven't seen him for ... few days, at least. His truck's gone too." Sam can't decide if she's relieved or concerned that he's not here. The clerk gives an apologetic shrug. "I don't think you'll find him hanging around here anymore. Have you tried calling the police?"

Yeah, because they have such a great track record with finding missing people in this town. Sam smiles politely. "Not yet. We don't want to bother them with this, I'm sure it's nothing serious. His cell phone is probably just broken. Has his room been cleaned out?"

As it turns out, no. Burt Aframian had rented out the room for a month and according to the clerk, it's exactly the way he'd left it; judging by the visible crappiness of the motel in question, Sam can believe it. Dad likes staying at crappy, grimy places because it means there are lower odds of there being any maids to worry about coming in and finding something they shouldn't.

They convince the clerk to give them the key to his room after Dean fishes out fake ID bearing the Aframian name, and go to Room 101 check it out. Dean pushes the door open, finds the light switch on the wall, and they all peer in.

Brady laughs and it's the single most awkward sound she's ever heard come out of him in two years. For once, he sounds completely out of his depth, like it's finally sinking in how crazy this is. Sam is afraid again, and she's not sure if it's for him or for her. "Goddamn. What's up with this guy?"

Dean is already walking in, examining the room's jumbled contents. The thin motel walls cluttered with dozens and dozens of papers, missing men's frozen faces staring out, maps with circles and lines in red, pictures of things Sam's never heard of. Her eyes land on one article, a huddle of figures in front of a house, and her heartbeat picks up. Dean, his back to them, doesn't see it, checking the bed (made up neater than any maid - Dad left on his own power), "What's the matter, Brady? You scared or something?" He turns with his eyebrows jerked up. "You can always leave if you w- Sam?"

"Dean," Sam says in a tiny, breathless voice, unseeing. She can't feel her legs and has to will herself upright.

"Sam?"

Brady.

"Sam?!"

Dean.

Her heart is going crazy and there's sharp pain in her head, her eyes, water dribbling out of them. She has to close them. She can't feel anything but fire.

Take me home.

Where? Home? For a moment she thinks, confused, of the Impala, the backseat, Dad in the front and Dean in the passenger seat, but that's wrong. That hasn't been right for a long time. Home is Stanford, home is where she made her first real friends, home is Brady, his unwavering love and belief and the adoring look in his eyes when he sees her that fills her with warm bubbles because this is it, this is really it, she thought she'd never have it but she has him.

There's a shriek in her head, so sharp and loud it tears out her mouth. No, she doesn't have him. She'll never be loved, not really. He used her and threw her away, and she didn't mean to, she's so sorry, it was an accident, really, please wake up, she's so sorry, she just wants her family back, she just wants her home back but -

But she can never go home. She can't. She wakes up calling for her children - and tonight, she hears them calling back. She follows their voices, walking barefoot over pavement, loose stones, and dirt, stumbling on split-open feet and hardly feeling it. She is lost in a dream too dark and dreary and terrible to believe, too heavy and pressing to feel or think. Instinct drives her to her children's voices like a pig to slaughter as their empty, trilling voices melt together in unison, "Mommy, come here, come home, Mommy, come to us."

She is a mother, full of awful, painful love for her only children, drowned and dead in moments (it was only seconds, it seems, but the police looked at her with suspicion that cut her to the core). She climbs up the side of the bridge. Her eyes are dry and she sees clearly, the water far below, the huge and jagged rocks. She knows how they want her to make up for what she did, and she knows she must. But her courage fails her and she wavers. She can't bear to face them.

"One more step, Mommy," they drone together, the hollow voices of her dead, angry children.

Sam's head snaps to the side, her cheek stinging and eyes popping open. She's not standing on top of a bridge in the middle of the night. She's crumpled on the floor, legs stretched out stiff and twitching, with Dean's pale face hovering in front of hers.

She forces herself out of it, swallows down dryness and tastes copper in her mouth. "Dean?"

"The fuck did you hit her for?" Brady snarls behind her, almost making her jump. God, she's a mess right now.

"It worked, didn't it?" Dean says shortly, and puts his hand on her cheek, pressing down to remove some of the sting, before switching it to her forehead. "What's wrong, are you sick?"

"No, just - just dizzy, I guess," she says feebly, trying to hide her panic because what the hell was that? She's had headaches lately, sure, and nightmares, but nothing like this. Dizzy spells followed by... what, waking nightmares, delusions, hallucinations? Is she losing her mind? Right now?

Can't be. God no, not now. She made it so far, and she has so much more she wants to do -

"What the hell were in those pills you gave her?" Dean barks at Brady.

"Aspirin, genius," Brady hurls back. "One tablet to help her sleep a few hours without waking up screaming."

Sam winces as Dean's attention hones back on her. "Screaming?"

"Yeah, Dean, I have nightmares. It hasn't all been lollipops and candy canes with you and Dad, all right?" she mutters, really wishing Brady hadn't mentioned that part.

"Maybe not, but you never had nightmares like that before," Dean says darkly. Sam catches his eyes return to Brady, and scoffs loud enough to startle both men in the room.

"Would you - come on, Dean, enough already with this crap already!" she complains, hoping Brady assumes "this crap" means "babying me" and not "thinking Brady is trying to poison me". She struggles to her feet and accepts Brady's help up, shrugging off Dean's hand on her back in annoyance. Okay, the assuming her fiancé is trying to kill her thing is irritating, but he really can't be treating her like a two-year-old in front of the aforementioned fiancé too.

Dean juts his lip out, green eyes flitting between her and Brady. "Sure, whatever." He turns away and starts poking at one of the maps of this town. Dad had circled some areas.

Sam takes a minute to dust her shorts off, feeling grit clinging to her where she landed. Brady lingers, wanting to help but hesitant to touch her now. "Are you...?"

"Good." She offers him a wane smile. "Sorry this weekend isn't turning out the way we planned, but don't let Dean get to you."

"Is he like that with everyone?"

"... Not exactly."

"Can't win 'em all," Brady reflects. He winks at her. "But hey. I won the one that matters."

She smiles thinly and he seems satisfied with that before going off to walk around the room, looking at everything plastered up on the walls. He walks by the article, and Sam bites her lip.

She looks at it again, and this time, no headache, no dizziness, no thundering heartbeat. No hallucinations of another family, another life.

She walks to it and takes it gently from the rest, careful not to send all of Dad's controlled chaos plummeting to the floor.

"FIRE KILLS MOTHER OF TWO," the headline blares. Beneath it is a picture of her family. Dad, shaven and smiling with years off his face. A kid she doesn't recognize that must be Dean with a mop of blond hair; she doesn't remember a time where his hair ever got so long. Maybe Dad was in charge of cutting it, after. And there's her, of course, or what she assumes is her - a bald, indistinct, pink-skinned blob of baby, held in her mother's arms.

Sam stares, fascinated as ever by the ghost in the picture. The stranger worshipped by Dad and Dean, the holy word never to be spoken aloud. She is beautiful, of course, and looks nothing like Sam. Sam has never heard her voice, has never talked to her; has no memories whatsoever of her. But she beams at her adult daughter from the picture nonetheless, blonde and radiant and radiating a warmth and love Sam will never experience.

Sam wonders often what her mom would think of her. She used to wonder how her name would've sounded from Mom, and if her hands were warm or cool, and imagined how tall and dark and beautiful she was; then she hit puberty and between Dean's terrifying uncertainty and Dad turning a deaf ear to all things girly, felt her absence like a cold chill. She started wondering what Mom would think of all this madness, the sad, lonely, terrifying lives her family lead in mad devotion to her memory.

She'd found this article before, years ago. It was how she first found out what her mom had really looked like, and realizing how wrong she was, how little she was like her mother, hit harder than a punch to the gut.

That was when she found out that her mom had burned to death, less than a year after Sam was born.

"On the night of November 2, 1983," the article began. That's right. It would be 22 years to the day tomorrow since her mother died. Was that why Dad had sent Dean off and come up here alone? To toast the memory of his late wife and get smashed in private?

"Sam!" Dean calls out, and Sam, afraid of how Dean will react if he sees Mom's picture, folds the article up into a small precise square and sticks it into her pocket. She comes over to watch over his shoulder as he crouches on the ground in front of the door.

"Check this out." He swipes his finger through the white mess on the floor, rubs it between his thumb, and shows it to her. "Salt," he says meaningfully. "Dad laid down a salt-line."

Sam waits for the punchline. "Okay. And?"

"'And'? What do you mean 'and'?"

"I mean 'and why's that important'?"

"Because salt guards against spirits, Sam," Dean says, very slowly.

She frowns. "Like ghosts? You think he was worried that this thing was coming after him?"

"Ghosts, or something else," Brady pipes in. He hooks his thumb at the pictures he was looking at - horned figures with hooked claws, a fly that towered over the people cowering from it in the picture, and a goat-headed man with his arms spread wide, surrounded by three kneeling supplicants.

"Demons," Sam realizes, and her heart sinks. "You think demons are involved in this?" She looks helplessly at Dean - ghosts they can handle, but they've never run up against demons themselves. Yanked out of her idyllic college life, four years out of hunting, and with Brady to keep safe, she doesn't feel up for the challenge.

Dean doesn't look worried, or cocky, or anything she expects. His forehead pinches together like he's studying her and suddenly he grabs her by the upper arm. She tries to pull away. "Hey - !"

"Come on, outside. Now."

His tone brooks no argument. What did she do this time? She raises her voice without breaking eye contact. "Stay there, Brady, we'll be back in a minute!"

Brady isn't even paying attention. He's pulling open drawers and bending over to glimpse inside. "Roger that."

"Come _on_ , Sam," Dean hisses, and tugs her outside before using the flat of his hand to close the motel door.

Sam rips her arm free. "What the hell, Dean? We should be in there, trying to find clues to where Dad went."

"In a second, but first, we gotta talk."

She flings her arms out. "Okay then, you want to talk? Let's talk. How about - "

"I don't give a shit about your boyfriend," he interrupts. "What was that in there? An act? A, what, a joke? I don't know what you're even playing at. Why'd you bother to do that in front of him, huh?"

"... What are you _talking_ about?"

"I'm talkin' about the part where you pretended not to know what salt-lines mean! Come on, Sam!"

"Maybe I acted like I didn't know because I really didn't know, Dean." She squints at him, completely at a loss. "Is that what this is all about?"

Dean stares at her for a moment in something fast approaching horror. "Are you serious? Sam, we were laying down salt-lines since you were 7. That was one of the first things Dad and I taught you. You used it to hunt for years. That's what we use to torch ghosts!"

A pit grows in Sam's stomach. Why would Dean lie to her about this? She knows he wouldn't. But then how could she so totally forget something he says is so important? It's not there - none of what he says should be there is. Ghosts are weakened by iron, and stopped by burning the remains. She knows that by heart. But the only thing she's ever used salt for is for seasoning.

The nightmares and the hallucinations and now, according to Dean, she's losing her memories. What's happening to her?

She shakes her head slowly, wrapping her arms around herself. "Maybe... Maybe I started blocking some things out. It's not like those memories weren't traumatic," she says. She can hear herself trying to convince them both.

It doesn't work on her. Or Dean. "That why you fell?" he asks. "What was that? It was like you were having some kind of fit."

"I don't know what that was. It was like I was... somewhere else."

"What does that m-" Dean is starting to ask, when suddenly he's looking past her, grabbing her shoulder and turning her to look too.

A black-and-white police car is pulled up to the clerk's front office. With uniformed officers making a beeline for them.

"Oh God," Sam says weakly. If she gets charged with anything - or even a call back to Stanford - she can kiss that job interview goodbye.

"You go, I'll distract them," Dean tells her.

"No time. I try to run, they might start pulling out their guns and probably end up shooting themselves trying to get us." Sam pulls out her cellphone and hits speed dial.

"Who're you- Oh. Great. Him." Dean makes a sound of disgust. She's a tiny bit relieved by it - at least some things are staying normal.

She cups her hand over her ear, watching the officers trot faster. "Sammy, what's up?" Brady's voice greets her.

She drops her voice. "Listen to me and move as fast as you can. There should be a window in the bathroom. Use it to get out of that room, don't use the front door. If I call you, hang up if I don't say 'Swordfish' in the first sentence. Head back to the library and we'll meet you there soon."

Dean groans. "Your codeword is 'Swordfish'? Lame."

"Drop everything and put your hands up, now!" one of the officers orders.

Dean drops to his knees, folding his hands behind his head. "Easy! We're cooperating, see! Everything's fine!" he calls back. He glances at her.

But Brady's not gone. "Whoa, slow down, slick. What's happening?"

"Put the phone down!"

"I'll tell you later. Stop talking and run. I'll see you soon, I promise," Sam says as quickly as she can. She hits end and places her phone on the ground, mimicking Dean's position as she sinks to her knees beside him.

The officers slap handcuffs on both siblings' wrists, unfortunately good-grade police cuffs they can't work their way out of. They're put in the back of the police car and locked in before the officers go into Room 101. Sam holds her breath, hoping they don't reemerge dragging out any blond men between them.

Her brother nudges her in the side. "D'you remember this at least, Sammy? Just like old times, huh?"

She can't believe she's related to him. "Yes, Dean, _this_ part I do remember."

Dean flashes a grin at her. "Well, that's something."


End file.
